BRATISLAVA (AFP) - Environmental group Greenpeace will lodge a legal challenge to Slovak authorities' go ahead for the completion of two nuclear power stations in the country's west, a representative said Wednesday.
The organisation will complain to the supreme court against the go ahead for completion of Mochovce's third and fourth nuclear reactors without prior environmental impact assessments being carried out.
MILAN, May 28 (Reuters) - Italian power generators and major consumers should fund a revival of nuclear energy in the country which rejected it 20 years ago, an executive from the utility A2A SpA said on Wednesday.
A simmering debate about a possible renaissance of nuclear energy in Italy -- which was banned in a 1987 referendum after the Chernobyl disaster -- heated up last week when economic development minister said construction of new nuclear plants should start within five years.
France’s nuclear safety watchdog has ordered EDF to halt work temporarily at its flagship new generation nuclear power station after finding that the French electricity giant had failed to address deficiencies in quality controls.
The Nuclear Safety Authority, charged with inspecting France’s 59 reactors, said on Tuesday that it had detected anomalies in the reinforcement of concrete for the 1,600MW EPR reactor being built at Flamanville in northern France.
Robot submarines are to be used to sweep particles of plutonium and other radioactive materials from the seabed near one of Britain's biggest nuclear plants in one of the most delicate clean-up operations ever in this country.
Each submersible will be fitted with a Geiger counter and will crisscross the sea floor to pinpoint every deadly speck close to Dounreay on Scotland's north coast before lifting each particle and returning it to land for safe storage.
Romania is eyeing construction of a new nuclear plant with capacity of between 2,000 and 2,400 megawatts, whose first unit could come on line after 2020, the head of the state nuclear operator Nuclearelectrica said on Friday.
Along with some other former communist EU members, Romania is at the forefront of a renewed push for nuclear energy as an alternative to coal and gas which emit carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming. Nuclearelectrica operates Romania’s only nuclear power station in Cernavoda, where the first of two 706MW units went on stream in 1996.
MADRID, May 26 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000-megawatt Almaraz I nuclear power station is likely to be back on line on Wednesday or Thursday after refuelling, management told Reuters on Monday.
A spokeswoman at the plant added that if reconnection began on Tuesday night or Wednesday, the plant would be back at full power by Thursday.
Suez’s formal withdrawal from the bidding for British Energy further whittles down the official number of European energy groups that have expressed an interest in acquiring all or part of the nuclear power group.
In early April it was thought that British Energy was in discussions with five European energy companies about a possible bid or collaboration. The groups believed to be in the talks at the time were EDF, the French state-controlled energy group, RWE and Eon of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola, and Centrica of the UK.
PRAGUE, May 24 (IPS) - The EU seems to be backing nuclear energy as the response to global warming and gas dependency, but civic groups warn that safety and waste processing should be preconditions for the industry's growth.
These issues were debated in Prague May 22-23 at the second European Nuclear Energy Forum, an EU (European Union) initiative to discuss opportunities and risks of nuclear energy.
PRAGUE (AFP) — European power companies called Friday for urgent EU-wide moves to clear the way for new nuclear plants, stressing the security and climate change dangers of a failure to act.
"We have a barrel of oil costing 135 dollars a barrel, it is urgent to act. Industry cannot wait for a gradual approach to lead to convergence (in harmonised safety rules)," Electricite de France board member Bruno Lescoeur warned on the second, final day of the European Nuclear Energy Forum.
MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russian nuclear power agency Rosatom dismissed on Saturday rumors circulating in the country's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad of a radioactive leak from a plant in neighboring Lithuania.
Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said several journalists had contacted him on Friday asking about an alleged accident at Lithuania's nuclear plant.
